Newsletter

Public alcohol sales at Georgia-Florida game 'highly unlikely'

ATLANTA--Don’t look for the alcohol to start flowing inside the stadium in Jacksonville for the Georgia-Florida football game.

Alcohol sales to the general public for the annual game are “highly unlikely,” a source said.

SEC athletic directors talked some this week in Atlanta about reviewing the alcohol policy for neutral site games and home games off campus and will speak more about the subject in May.

LSU athletic director Joe Alleva told AL.com selling beer at football games “would enhance the fan experience,” and could curtail drunkenness because some fans already drink excessively in the parking lot because they can’t drink inside the stadium. West Virginia has sold alcohol at football games and Texas at some campus sporting events, according to AL.com

Georgia-Florida had been known as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” but the schools have cooled to that name in recent years due to excessive alcohol use on campus and CBS was asked in 2006 to stop referring to the game with that name.

The SEC allows private areas such as suites at games to serve alcohol. That is already done in Jacksonville.

A spokesman for Jacksonville mayor Alvin Brown told Jacksonville.com that the city would monitor SEC actions before consulting with Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity and Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley. There were three deaths and a severe beating on the weekend of the Florida-Georgia game in the past nine years.

In other Georgia-Florida game news, the schools have agreed to each wear their home jerseys in the game, Foley said in an interview on Florida’s official athletics website.

That means Georgia will be in its home red and Florida in its home blue each year for the first time since the 1960s. The idea came from a fan suggestion.